by Lynn Morris
The old van Dam place, though undoubtedly of gracious line and proportion, had been a hulk, used for many years for storage for Edward Purdue’s real property and construction company, Purdue Properties.
The windows, and all of the doors except the kitchen entrance at the back, had been crudely boarded up and locked with heavy chains and padlocks to discourage looters and squatters. It had been a grim and desolate place, a great hulk in the middle of the charming stand-alone brownstone houses that had been built by Purdue Properties. Mr. Purdue had been considering plans to demolish the old van Dam place and build houses on the property when Victoria and Dev had decided to found the hospital. They also bought the third cottage on the Sixth Avenue side of the block and converted it into the hospital kitchen and laundry. Cleve Batson, having been fairly successful as Cheney’s and Dev’s partner, was able to buy the second cottage, so almost the entire block was owned by the hospital and the physicians.
Now, after the massive repairs and renovations, the original house, with the long low graceful wings on each side built of the same creamy yellow Holland brick and the manicured gardens and grounds, looked dignified and gracious, far removed from tragedy or taint.
Though Cheney was enjoying the walk, she thought with a twinge of regret how nice it would have been to ride with Shiloh today. He had told her of all of his duties and errands for the day. First he was meeting Richard Duvall, Cheney’s father, at the Duvall Iron Foundry. Shiloh’s clipper, Locke’s Day Dream, was in New York, and Richard had decided to expand Duvall’s Tools and Implements—the finished goods part of his iron and steel business—to include some marine equipment. Locke’s Day Dream was going to be Duvall’s first customer. The company would be installing brand-new iron braces and something like…banging…barging…no, no. It was something about knees, wasn’t it?
Cheney faltered as she tried to recall what Shiloh had told her the previous night. She had been so tired, and they had, after all, had the extreme distraction of dealing with Mr. Phinehas Jauncy. Her mouth twitched as she thought of the poor lost little puppy Shiloh had dragged in out of the snowstorm. Cheney had a feeling that Mr. Jauncy would be around for a while.
Banging knees? Could that be right?
A young gentleman, clad in a fine velvet riding coat, polished boots, and a beaver top hat, rode down the quiet street on a gorgeous Arabian that pranced and preened and skittered sideways. The gentleman’s eyes shone with admiration as he passed Cheney, and he doffed his hat, elegantly sweeping out an elaborate bow. Cheney gave him the slightest nod of acknowledgment, her face expressionless. But no woman was immune from such open admiration, and she smiled a little to herself as she walked, her head held high. Cheney’s features were much like her mother’s, but she had her father’s slender build and proud carriage. She didn’t have the soft loveliness of her mother, but the strong line of her jaw, the firmness of her mouth, and the determination of her gaze made her interesting-looking rather than conventionally pretty. She was tall and unfashionably healthy, strong, and athletic. But when Cheney saw the passing gentleman’s look of admiration, she was only conscious of how blessed she was to feel so good about her looks. She was twenty-eight now and felt that she had only come into full bloom in the last year or so. Most of the shrinking violets, at this advanced age, were fighting a losing battle to preserve the fragile beauty that was quickly fading.
She was even more striking today with her new winter cloak. It was a deep plum-colored velvet, trimmed with sable. Of walking length, it fit over Cheney’s severe shirtwaists and skirts she wore while working. Victoria Buchanan, her best friend, had designed the cloak for her. It was a queenly garment, fitted tightly at Cheney’s small waist, with wide royal sleeves, and the rich black sable that was the rarest, costliest fur of all. Victoria had insisted that Cheney also have a muff and a daring small skullcap of velvet with a wide sable trim. Cheney wore it rakishly far forward on her head, with the crown of her auburn curls heightened at the back.
Turning the corner, she saw with satisfaction that St. Luke the Physician Private Hospital and Dispensary, with its mellow golden bricks and its long low graceful sweep of the patient wings, looked dignified and gracious in its snow mantle. The old trees—elm, sycamore, oak, maple—made spare sculptures against the placid sky. As always, Cheney looked up at the inscription over the door—Siste Viator in stark Roman lettering—and wondered about it. I must remember to ask Dev about it. He may have learned the history of the house when he and Victoria were considering buying it. Then again, that is exactly the kind of thing that Dev would never wonder about. He would automatically translate it in his mind—Stop, traveler—and would never give it a second thought. Shiloh, on the other hand, is the kind of man who would find it intriguing and mysterious, as do I. How lucky I am; how blessed I am…. How I miss him!
Cheney and Shiloh saw very little of each other these busy days, as they worked hard to establish themselves in their chosen careers. Thinking of how near she had come to nagging Shiloh into a life that he had no desire for—becoming a doctor—just to please her, Cheney gave a little shudder and promised herself that she would never, never drag Shiloh into the complex, teeming, demanding, difficult, consuming world of medicine again.
The main entrance of the hospital was the original grand portico of the house, with walnut wainscoting and a discreetly green-striped velvet wallpaper, an immense Bohemian crystal chandelier, and long walnut refectory tables on each side. Victoria had contracted with a hothouse upstate to supply fresh flowers every week. The vibrant splashes of orange, yellow, and white mums, great blooms nodding in Stilton vases, lit up the great foyer. Just ahead was the chapel, newly built by the partners. On each side were offices and sitting rooms, one for the physicians and one for the nurses and other staff. Quickly Cheney stored her outerwear in the doctors’ sitting room and went back across to the administration offices.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Buchanan, Dr. Pettijohn,” she said breezily as she entered the office. “Good heavens, Victoria, you’re practically buried under that pile of papers. I’ve never seen you work so hard. As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen you work at all. Being married to Dev has made you practically industrious.”
“Hardly,” Victoria Elizabeth Steen de Lancie Buchanan answered languidly. “Dr. Pettijohn does all the work. I just watch and look as if I understand it all and nod approvingly.”
Victoria was a tiny blond woman with a crystalline beauty, fabulously wealthy, married to a man she adored, and she was Cheney’s best friend. She was also an extremely shrewd, intelligent, and exacting businesswoman.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Duvall,” Dr. Pettijohn said smoothly. “I assure you I would never allow Mrs. Buchanan to disappear under a mountain of paperwork.”
Dr. Marcus Pettijohn was the other staff physician besides Cheney and Cleve Batson. He was a young man, with thick, curly sandy blond hair and mustache, blue eyes, and a complexion as fine as a woman’s. He was of average height and slight of build. He was undoubtedly intelligent and had had the advantage of attending L’Hôpital de la Charité in Paris and of receiving his medical degree from that illustrious institution. But when his father had passed away, Dr. Pettijohn had been required to return to New York. Elmore Pettijohn, his father, had owned Pettijohn’s Apothecary on the south side of the block on Twenty-Fourth Street, as had his father before him, when he had established the business in 1790.
Cheney and Dev had used Pettijohn’s Apothecary since they had opened their practice in 1865, and they missed the elder Mr. Pettijohn very much. He had been a kind, personable gentleman who was the most conscientious and careful apothecary Cheney had ever known. He had been so proud of his son Marcus. After old Mr. Pettijohn had died and Marcus had returned to New York, Marcus had taken over the business. But when Dev and Victoria had considered all the applications they had received for staff physician, they had decided on Marcus Pettijohn. So Dr. Pettijohn had closed the apothecary shop and sold the little cottage to
Mr. Roe, who owned Roe’s Livery and Stables on the same block.
Marcus Pettijohn had proved to be such a valuable assistant in helping Victoria with the administration of the hospital that he had been named administrative assistant, and Cheney and Cleve had agreed that he should have the coveted day shift—from eight to six—in the hospital. Actually, neither Cheney nor Cleve had cared. Cheney liked working from two until midnight. She had found, in San Francisco, that this shift was the one she liked best. And Dr. Batson hadn’t minded having the midnight shift, since he lived virtually on the hospital grounds. He made at least one round on his 10 P.M. to 8 A.M. shift—usually around eleven o’clock to consult with Cheney—but unless something was pressing, he then retired to his house, leaving instructions to call him if needed.
“Is Dev here?” Cheney asked Victoria, idly looking at some of the papers on the littered desk. One was an invoice for a hundred syringes, another was a purchase order for plaster of paris. Victoria insisted on everything being done in writing.
“We came together, but right behind us a messenger boy came from Dr. Banckert at Bellevue,” Victoria answered. “They just had a brain come in—that was exactly how he worded it—from a man who’d had epileptic fits, and would Dev like to come and dissect with Dr. Banckert? I said he most certainly would not like to, but of course he went anyway.”
“But I have a brain too!” Cheney objected. “Dev promised to dissect mine with me!”
Dr. Pettijohn and Victoria exchanged small amused glances. “Cheney, my dear, unless your brain has some exotic disease or malformation or is the brain of something interesting like a mermaid or a dragon, you have been trumped, I’m afraid,” Victoria said.
“Mine is just a plain brain,” Cheney said rather sulkily. “But I still wanted Dev to help me. I’m so ignorant of neurosurgery. Er—Dr. Pettijohn, I do have an interesting case in the morgue. I did most of the dissection last night, but I saved the brain and the feet for today. You’re welcome to join me if you’d like.”
“The feet?” he said hastily, gulping a little. Recovering, he said, “Thank you, Dr. Duvall, but Mrs. Buchanan and I still have much to do, and then I must be going. I’m going to a small party with some friends this evening, and afterward we are attending a lecture.”
“Oh?” Cheney asked brightly. She was a little unsure of herself with Dr. Pettijohn. His expression generally was one of attentiveness and interest with, perhaps, a little extra warmth when he looked at Victoria Buchanan, but when he was speaking with Cheney, he seemed to block himself off from square eye-to-eye communication. He just always looked completely blank to Cheney. No animosity, no interest, no good nor bad, but Cheney always found herself wondering what he was thinking behind the empty expression and bland blue eyes. “What is the lecture about?” she went on politely.
“Er—the stars. Astronomy. Constellations and so on,” he answered rather shortly.
“I see,” Cheney said uncomfortably. “Sounds very interesting.”
Victoria asked eagerly, “Are we still having the board meeting tonight at Duvall Court? And then to the opera?”
“Yes, as long as my new patient, Mr. Melbourne, is doing well,” Cheney answered cautiously.
“I checked him thoroughly this morning and then every hour,” Dr. Pettijohn said smoothly. “He seems to be doing fairly well, considering the traumatic nature of the injury.”
“Thank you,” Cheney said. “I’ve been very concerned about him, naturally. Anyway, Victoria, Mother did send word this morning warning me to make certain I didn’t let an interesting dissection or exotic new case keep me from coming. I asked Dr. White to stay this evening, and I’ve alerted Mr. Roe to keep James and John on call all night just in case they need to come fetch one of us.”
Dr. Pettijohn cleared his throat delicately. “But, Dr. Duvall, Dr. White is just a student doctor. Perhaps it’s not such a good idea for all of the staff physicians to be out of pocket at once? I would be happy to—”
“No, no,” Cheney said hastily. “There’s no reason for you to stay, Dr. Pettijohn, especially since you are the on-call physician this weekend. If there is some pressing emergency before I leave, then of course I’ll stay to attend to it. And if one comes up tonight, I’m certain Dr. White and Miss Nilsson can manage until one of us can get here.” She turned back to Victoria. “And so, barring any emergencies, Shiloh and I will be there. What about Dev? Can you corral him, do you think?”
“I certainly can,” Victoria answered with determination. “We haven’t been to the opera or theater since we bought this hospital, and we haven’t seen your parents for ages. We’ll be there. What are you wearing?”
“I don’t have time to discuss it right now, Victoria dear,” Cheney said with amusement. “I hear my brain and my feet calling. I’ll see you later. Good day, Dr. Pettijohn. I hope you enjoy your lecture.”
“Thank you, Dr. Duvall,” he said politely.
She turned as she shut the door of the office behind her and caught a glimpse of Dr. Pettijohn’s face as he watched her leave. There was nothing in his expression that Cheney could describe as objectionable. He nodded politely at Cheney and leaned back over Victoria to say something in a low, respectful voice.
It’s funny. I don’t know a single thing about him, Cheney reflected uncomfortably. I’ll have to try and remember to ask Victoria about him tonight.
But she didn’t remember to ask about him.
Until it was too late.
Four
Shadow Song
“What I simply cannot understand,” Minerva Evelyn Wilcott said plaintively, “is why lady-gentleman-lady-gentleman seating doesn’t work out when you have the same number of ladies and gentlemen.”
The rest of the guests at Richard and Irene Duvall’s table first looked incredulous, then struggled to put on polite faces. The seating was, of course, assigned on the basis of Richard at the head of the table and Irene at the foot of the table. The first order of seating would be to have a lady at Richard’s right, which was Minerva, and then a gentleman, which was Dr. Cleve Batson, then Cheney, and then Irene. On Irene’s right was a gentleman—Shiloh—then Victoria, then Dev, and Richard at the head.
Minerva went on, “It just seems that with four gentlemen and four ladies there would be some way to have lady-gentleman four times. But look, there is Dr. Buchanan by Mr. Duvall, and there is Dr. Duvall by Mrs. Duvall. Why is that, I wonder?” She batted impossibly big round blue eyes with the longest, thickest, curliest dark lashes ever bestowed upon a woman. With her blond hair and Snow White complexion, her eyes were quite striking.
Gallantly her escort Cleve Batson said, “It’s because of geometry, Minerva, and you know how you hate geometry. Don’t worry about it, my dear. By the time you are assigning seating at your own dinner parties, I’m certain geometry will be out of vogue.”
“Well, I should hope so,” Minerva declared.
Victoria smiled at her cousin. “Minerva, dearest, I think you must sing for us tonight. Your gifts are certainly more in the musical line than in the mathematics.”
She spoke with clear affection. Minerva had always been rather scatterbrained, but she was lovely enough to complement any table and was a docile, complaisant child. Actually, she was twenty-one years old, but because of her naïveté she seemed much younger. She had attended Rutgers, whose courses, along with the usual women’s studies of home management, etiquette, music, dancing, and elocution, also included belles lettres, history, mathematics, and philosophy. Minerva had managed to graduate, but none of it seemed to have in the least changed her affable laziness. She simply couldn’t be bothered with boring intellectual pursuits.
But she was a pleasing companion and was Victoria’s favorite cousin. Minerva had come to stay with the Buchanans in their palatial Fifth Avenue Italianate mansion for the season after her graduation in May. She seemed to have no interest in returning home any time soon. Dev had told Cheney that it was perfectly all right with him for Minerva t
o stay as long as she wished; the house was so big that he didn’t see her for days on end. He had also remarked that once he had gotten off of the elevator on the fourth floor instead of the third, where his and Victoria’s and Dart’s private family rooms were, and found there were four couples staying in four of the bedrooms—there were eight on the fourth floor—that he had never seen before. He was amazed to learn that they had been visiting for almost a week.
“Vic loves it,” he had confessed to Cheney. “And I’m glad she doesn’t sit at home basing her entire life around me. That would be hard for both of us.”
Now, as Cheney listened to Minerva’s foolishness with the same amused indulgence as did the others at the table, she reflected that Minerva and Cleve were particularly suited. Both of them were so even-tempered and obliging that they would never have fights. Neither of them would consider single-minded passionate intensity as something to be desired in a companion.
Idly Cheney’s thoughts wandered as she considered her own husband’s carefree, amiable exterior that masked deep, fervent desires and emotions—matched by her own, she reflected. This self-discovery had been something of a surprise after her marriage.
Cheney felt herself blush deeply as she realized that Shiloh was gazing across the table at her with an all-too-familiar knowing look in his eyes. With the merest hint of a wink he said, “Well, I happen to know the doc’s passion—”
“Who was talking about passion?” Cheney interrupted rudely, her cheeks flaming. “I wasn’t!”
“No, you weren’t, dear,” Irene said in her silvery-satin voice. “Nor were you listening, were you, darling? Mrs. Buchanan had just suggested that Miss Wilcott might sing for us tonight. She was expressing that Miss Wilcott has a true passion for Mozart.”
“And I observed that I had a passion for surgical technique,” Dev added, “and how odd are the things that kindle one’s interest.”